My daughter is seven and will be eight in a few months. And boy, oh boy, the outbursts I sometimes experience with her. Sometimes, they are directed at me, her brother, or even a friend.  These happen mainly in the morning and at school when she doesn’t get her way.

Her excuse for the morning anger is that she is not a morning person and doesn’t like being rushed. She is also very tearful, and I think she cries when she gets so angry, and she doesn’t quite know how to control that anger. This article contains some handy information. If all else fails, get your child in therapy. An angry child becomes and angry adult, which we don’t want.

Anger Management for Kids

Everyone has angry feelings. Big emotions, including feeling mad, are normal parts of life. If we want to help our children manage their anger effectively, we first have to teach them about this big and complex emotion—what it feels like, what causes it, and effective ways to manage it.

As parents, we must teach our kids these four things.

1) What is Anger?

The first step is for kids to understand that everyone has a hard time and feels angry sometimes- and that is okay! It’s part of learning mindfulness. 

Anger shouldn’t be considered a “bad” emotion, but learning healthy ways to manage anger with healthy coping skills is important.

2) What Does Anger Feel Like?

Teach your kids how to read their bodies and identify anger signs. 

Anger may feel different to some people. For some kids, it may cause them to cry, others may feel their heart beating faster, and some may have urges to act out in physical ways. These big emotions can cause conflict in everyday life.

When a child is mindful of what anger feels like, then can stop it in its tracks with these essential skills.

3) What Causes Anger?

The best way to help your child develop tools to combat anger is to help them identify their biggest anger triggers.

Do they get upset when they lose a game? Does it make them mad when they can’t do something by themselves? Are they angry when they are tired or hungry?

Talking to your kid about what makes them mad will help them start to think logically through this emotion.

4) How do you Combat Anger?

The last step to Quieting the Storm is to teach your kid anger management activities to help them cope with this uncomfortable feeling.

There are simple activities that your kid can do to focus, relax, and think clearly – and ultimately express anger healthily. 

Tools for Calming Down

Sometimes, your child’s anger and negative emotions will cloud their ability to have conversations or focus on coping strategies.

The good news is that there are simple ways you can get them to relax and think straight.

Play therapist. Tell your child that they are in a safe place. Then, help them lower their heart rate with deep breathing exercises.

For young children, try these fun and easy-to-follow methods:

• Snake breathing: Take a deep breath; when you exhale, make a hissing noise as long as possible.
• Rainbow breathing: Start with arms at the side of your body; as arms go up (like a rainbow arch), take deep breaths, and as they go down, exhale.

Teaching little kids to cope with big feelings with fun activities is a great way to engage them.

Quiet the Storm Inside

Anger is like a storm. You can feel it rolling in, sometimes quickly and sometimes overtime. 

With a storm, we must let the rain come or do something to help (like open an umbrella). This is similar to anger. Angry kids may have to do an activity until their anger subsides. 

In closing, these simple anger management skills will help your kids deal with the unpleasant situations they will inevitably face throughout their lives. Try these anger management games next time you see anger impacting your child’s behaviour. 

When your child learns how to calm the anger storm brewing inside, they can react calmly and responsibly and start to see the light at the end of each tunnel they approach.

Anger Management Activities that Teach Coping Skills to Easily Angered Kids

My daughter is now in grade one and was diagnosed with dyslexia in March this year. Her teacher didn’t take long to figure out that she was struggling. Reading and writing were the ways her dyslexia came forth. Since then, we have made great strides in helping her cope with her learning disability. And I must say, she has shown up for herself in her school work and dedication to mastering reading and writing.

In the second half of the year, they were encouraged to read six books until the end of the year. So we bought her books, and off she went. But with most children, reading is a struggle for them; with all the electronics around, they prefer watching a TV show or playing games to reading. Back in the day, we had limited TV, lots of play outside, riding bikes and sports in the afternoons, and then there was reading. Apart from the fact that we were also made to read quite a bit at school, it only came much later in higher grades.

Having kids fall in love with reading from the beginning is a great idea. I have always tried to instil a love and respect for books in my kids. I did some research, and below are some ways to encourage your kids to cultivate a passion for reading and books.

1. Set a good example: Let your child see you reading regularly. Children often mimic the behaviour of adults around them.

2. Another key strategy for encouraging kids to read more is to create a reading-friendly environment. Ensure your child has many books, magazines, and other reading materials at home.

3. Reading together is a bonding experience and a great way to make reading more enjoyable for your child. Spend quality time reading with them.

4. Let them choose their own books: Allow your child to choose books that interest them. This will make reading more engaging and enjoyable for them.

5. Make reading fun: Encourage your child to participate in reading challenges, join a book club, or attend storytelling events at the library.

6. Limit screen time: Set boundaries on screen time and encourage your child to spend more time reading instead.

7. Praise and reward: Celebrate your child’s reading achievements and offer rewards to encourage them to read more.

My daughter turned 1, which seems completely unbelievable to me. But also feels in a way, like we made it to some kind of parenting milestone. And when I think back on my year as a mom, there have been so many highs and lows on the journey that I sometimes can’t believe we’ve made it this far. I know our first year has been the hardest of my life, but it has also been my happiest. I wish I could say that becoming a mom was perfectly blissful to me, but that wasn’t my reality at all. And I’ve learned that it’s okay to talk about that. I certainly don’t want my daughter one day to go into motherhood thinking that it’s all moonshine and roses. Motherhood is different for everyone, and it comes with a lot of challenges.

For me it was riddled with difficult moments, but what followed were some of the most incredibly profound blissful times of my life. 

When I look at my 2 boys, I can immediately see they are not alike. Despite the fact that they look different, they laugh, love and play differently. The way they dress  is also different and I am learning everyday that I should treat them differently as their personalities are not the same. 

My oldest son is almost a teenager, the age difference between my boys is 7 years. We raised him very strictly. He is a very emotional child, he is sensitive but also understanding. If we reprimand him he always listens and reacts immediately. He also says sorry very quickly if he has an outburst or when he realizes he was wrong or made a mistake. When I look at him at times I often feel that we are too hard on him but I trust it’s for the greater good. I can pick up that he now corrects his little brother at times when he sees him doing something wrong. 

When my youngest came along we decided to be less strict on him. He struggles at times with obedience, I can’t talk too loud or even discipline him in certain ways then the tears start rolling down his cheeks and then my heart wants to break. 

I feel sorry for him and give in (which is wrong)! I don’t know if it was the best decision to not discipline him like we did with the eldest but you learn everyday as a parent besides kids will always push their boundaries. I always say he is still my baby but realize he is growing up too and needs to be treated and encouraged as an independent individual who needs to know he can do certain things on his own. 

At the end of the day all we can do is our best to raise respectful children, pray and believe they will turn out well. 

Till next time 

Over the years I have watched so many friends around me have babies. I have watched their growing bellies wondering if this will one day be me. Over the last 6 years that we struggled through the storm of stimulation cycles, I did everything I could to get pregnant. 

I begged, pleaded, bargained and prayed to God. I dreaded baby showers, I was happy for my friends, I wished them joy, love and happiness, but I felt sad for me, too. People would always say things like, ‘Carly you have so many kids’. ‘You have so much love for other peoples’ children, it’s time you get your own’, or the dreaded one, ‘your husband will soon leave you if you don’t give him children’. Little did they know that for me it was not that easy. 

Infertility changes you. It breaks you down and leaves you in a dark place, left to pick up the pieces and put them back together. I’ve been pricked and prodded blue, stuffed full of hormones that not even I could understand at times. The hardest part is the uncertainty, each cycle you’re feeling cautiously hopeful thinking this might be the time you get pregnant, and you get excited to take the test to find out if it’s happened.

It’s this big build-up, but yet another let-down.

Each passing month heightened such emotions.

It gets scarier because you start thinking, ‘Is this one more step to getting pregnant or one more step toward finding out I’ll never have children?’ When you’re in the middle of it, you don’t know if that feeling is going to last forever, or if you’re going to get a happy ending.

After being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in my matric year, with multiple surgeries affecting my body, leaving behind scars and lacerations, struggling to get pregnant was one of the ‘horrors’ I had to face along with PCOS. Multiple cycles of clomid, setbacks with my health, one IUI cycle and even though the odds were against us, we decided to try IVF irrespective of what my doctors were advising me, and it was all worth it.

The goal with IVF ultimately is pregnancy but also that enough mature eggs are harvested, so that you can freeze a few for some more cycles, should this first one not be successful. With me they harvested 17 eggs, and I was like WOW, that’s a good number. I was ecstatic, proud of myself…because I mean 17!!  But on the day of the transfer the doctor informed us that only two out of the 17 harvested reached blastocyst stage for implantation.   There were none left to freeze. I was traumatized, I remember crying uncontrollably after the procedure already thinking if this doesn’t work, I would need to do EVERYTHING over again, and where will this money come from! But faith in God, family and friends kept me going…my support system was ever ready. 

The gift that infertility gave me was that I appreciate it in the here and now.